CHAPTER XII.

But on Thursday morning "Dodd" came to school again. This time he went
to the other extreme in the matter of clothes, and came into the room
dressed like a dandy. He had failed to make a sensation, so far, and
he had not been used to that sort of thing recently. For years he had
been the cause of something unusual, every few hours, and in ways about
as he chose. As it was now, he seemed to have lost his knack at this
art, and to have fallen into the condition of an ordinary individual,
concerning whom no one cared particularly.

This annoyed him greatly. He had come to think he was of some great
consequence in the world, by reason of his being so frequently talked
to, and prayed over, and reasoned with, and pampered in a thousand ways
by those who were really afraid of him; and now, to be set aside
without a word or a look, except such as all other pupils got, this was
a sore stroke to his vanity.

You see, everybody grows proud of his own attainments, in course of
time, no matter what they are, and is anxious to have his fellows
appreciate them to their fullest extent, and to acknowledge their
excellence in his particular case. So when he fails to secure a
recognition of his supposed talents, then he is cut to the very quick.

"Dodd" felt that his eccentricity had not yet been fully acknowledged
in the Emburg school, and he reached still further for the object of
his desire by playing the fop rather than the tramp, on his second